Tag Archives: agatha christie

Up in this podcast, a look at the inverted detective story, thanks from a tip by Cameron Estep. Unfortunately, there isn’t a really good example on radio of one, but a close contender is a play from the Molle Mystery Theater via the AFRS Mystery Theater called “Witness for the Prosecution” based on a play and short story by Dame… (more…)

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A look at how suspense is built dramatically as described by Mitchell Wilson, novelist and critic, in 1947. This podcast will use Agatha Christie’s short story, “Philomel Cottage,” and compare it to Hitchcock’s Suspicion and Rebecca in how the initially weak protagonist reaches a level of fear in which the reader/listener empathizes before either becoming strong by the experience and… (more…)

From the book by Nicholas Blake, aka Cecil Day-Lewis (father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis), The Beast Must Die is considered one of the author’s best works of fiction featuring his detective, Nigel Strangeways. This adaptation for Suspense excludes the detective, but adheres to some of the story as best it can within a one-half hour production. Starring Herbert Marshall as… (more…)

In looking at the development of the American detective genre reflected through Radio Drama, we are now into the early 20th century. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has begun to affect many of these early fictional detectives in the rise of the “deductive” detective. American detective fiction writers including S.S. Van Dine are finding their own detectives are models of the… (more…)

Rupert Croft-Cooke is a little known British writer who wrote a short story based upon a play called Banquo’s Chair in 1930. His mystery writings were never on the level of Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie or G.K Chesterton, all of whom he spoofed in a detective story he wrote. But his story Banquo’s Chair did achieve some success starting with… (more…)

This week you’ll hear from a detective who is not well known, yet, the novel on which it is based is considered very influential to the modern detective story. E.C. Bentley originally wrote his novel, Trent’s Last Case, on a challenge from his life-long friend, G.K. Chesterton. Bentley wrote this after becoming exasperated with the “perfection” Conan Doyle built into… (more…)

This time I present an example of taking an excellent fictional story and trying to squeeze it into a one half-hour suspense play. Agatha Christie’s story The ABC Murders is a fine Hercule Poirot mystery, but when handled by a normally excellent scriptwriter turning it into a radio drama, something has to give. The radio play as pure radio drama… (more…)

One of the best known fictional detectives in the world – Hercule Poirot was heard in books, movies and radio. This week, a look at this little man with the “little gray cells.” I’ll look at a number of his radio appearances with the full show being the premier episode of the first serialized version from 1945 starring Harold Huber… (more…)